


Love as a Sudden Sin

by Estirose



Category: Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame Series
Genre: Meta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:31:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estirose/pseuds/Estirose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fatal Frame universe runs on love, which is not always a good thing. Ponderings on love in the first four games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> I figured I'd dip my toe into meta on AO3, now that it's explicitly allowed under the rules. This is a more-or-less academic essay on the role of love in the first four Fatal Frame games (mostly because I haven't played Spirit Camera and we know almost nothing about the fifth game or the movie(s) as I write this). Fatal Frame is the name of the game where I live, and I am differentiating the first game from the general series by referring to it as Fatal Frame I. I'm using the English-language fan translation for Fatal Frame IV since that's what I have available to me.
> 
> Many thanks to the people who created and contributed to BCL's Zero Wiki, which I use extensively to supplement my memory when my console isn't available.

Love is very important in the Fatal Frame universe. It drives the backstory of every single game in the series, and also motivates some or most of the protagonists - though getting stuck in haunted locations doesn't hurt, either. 

The love in question varies from person to person in the first four games. For example, Kirie's and Reika's tragic stories deal with romantic love, while Sae's is a combination of the love of friend and sibling. Sakura's is also a case of familial love, as all that happened was due to her brother and father. In all cases, the love caused a ritual to fail and the events of the games to happen.

Likewise, several of the protagonists are drawn to the locations due to love and concern for others close to them. Mafuyu and Miku both go to Himuro Mansion because those they love or admire go missing in the place. Mio goes chasing after her sister Mayu and they both end up in the Lost Village. Rei, Miku, and Kei are drawn into the Manor of Sleep due to their loved ones, while Misaki goes back to Rougetsu Island because she was called by a girl she doesn't really remember.

So, love drives the story, both for protagonists and their tragic antagonists. It is what makes the events of the games so tragic and so horrible, so heartbreaking, and so memorable.


	2. Fatal Frame I: Love and the Isolated Shrine Maiden

The whole tragic story in Fatal Frame I revolves around Kirie and a really bad set of coincidences and decisions. As stated in the Strangling Ritual document, the shrine maiden is to be isolated from the outside world, and the Priest's Notes 1 clarify that that the shrine maiden is supposed to be free from worldly attachments. It works to keep the maiden ready for the sacrifice, but it also has a side effect - or possibly a main effect - of keeping her very lonely. When Kirie by chance spots a stranger, referred to in the game as "Kirie's Lover", outside her cell window and he waves to her, her face grows warm (Kirie's Diary 1). He's attracted to her and she's attracted to him, as several notes in her diary mention spending time with him, and his single, XBox-only entry indicates he's attracted to her as well.

It comes to the point where Lord Himuro decides the guest must disappear before it's too late. He instructs the priests to kill the man, as evidenced by the utterances they make just before Miku fights them as well as the notes they leave behind. At this point, Kirie's diary entries become sorrowful as she figures out he must have been killed. For Kirie, this is an important thing. She's been isolated for ten years, she finds someone who not only is friendly to her but she's in love with, and he dies because of it. This love, and the resulting sadness and grief, is used by the Malice to corrupt Kirie and cause the Calamity.

The Malice also warps several other individuals who die due to love and its related emotion guilt so they come back as malignant spirits. The Man With Long Arms, per his Ghost List Entry, lost his daughter when she became a shrine maiden. Upon his death, possibly caused by the reason he is shown with long arms, he returns to haunt the mansion. The XBox-only samurai, Tokitada Kyuki, falls in love with a shrine maiden. Instead of being killed like Kirie's Lover was, he was ordered to commit suicide - something documented in a later priest's research notes - and ends up in Kirie's dreams as she notes in a diary entry. And of course, there's Ryozo Munakata, who comes to Himuro Mansion with his family so that he can be both close to his research and to be there for his beloved, ailing wife Yae (as he notes in Old Diary Scrap 1, "The best thing about living here is that I don't have to go out to do my research. It's all here in this mansion. I can be right by Yae's side all of the time."). Yae kills herself both due to the camera (Ryozo mentions that she's acting oddly in one diary entry), and the guilt over Mikoto's disappearance as seen in her death note and her last words ("I want my daughter back!"). Ryozo is harder to pin down, as there are no direct written entries mentioning why he started frantically looking for the Blinding Mask, but a clue can be seen in his words after discovering his wife's hanging body: "Yae, why did you have to take your life?". Like his wife, Ryozo is likely snagged by guilt. One last, minor example could be seen with Boy Hiding, who leaves a note behind (Child's Writing) indicating he's waiting for Mikoto so that, among other things, he can ask her if she likes him. It isn't precisely love, but it kept him in a place where he ultimately died and came back.

As it happens, love and its cousin respect are responsible for fixing what went wrong as well. Mafuyu goes after the missing Junsei Takamine and party because he respects and feels indebted to the novelist. When he arrives, he comes to the attention of Kirie, who spares him - most likely because of his resemblance to her missing lover as he mentions in his sixth note. In fact, it's entirely possible that Kirie thinks he is her missing lover - her words as she's swallowing him towards the end of the game, "We will always be together!", echo the fifth diary entry where she states "I just wanted to be with him... I wanted us to be together forever and ever!". In turn, Mafuyu learns of her story and at least feels compassion, if not love, for her. He mentions in his note to Miku that he's going to see Kirie so that the Mansion stops claiming victims. What he was planning to do is unclear, since the next time he's seen he's absorbed by Kirie. In any case, Mafuyu chooses to make a rather controversial choice between familial and possibly romantic love in the end, choosing to stay with Kirie. It seems to be one that he's made without any hesitation, to die so that he can keep Kirie company - something that she was denied in life - but in the end leaves Miku alone, and as we find out in the third game, devastated. 

However, without Miku's love for her brother, Mafuyu would have never found his fate in the bowels of Himuro Mansion. She and Mafuyu seem close - she mentions in the opening that he was the only one that she could open up to about her visions (her sixth sense) as he had it too. It is perhaps unsurprising that she follows him to Himuro Mansion after he's been gone for two weeks. In fact, the whole main storyline of the game is Miku gradually unraveling what happened to Kirie and the other Mansion inhabitants as she desperately looks for her brother and tries to end the curse that might kill her. This love causes her to unrelentingly chase clues that might save both her brother and herself. In the end, when she reaches the Hell Gate, Mafuyu is there - along with Kirie, who promptly absorbs him into her body. This event ultimately causes Miku to fight Kirie, have her camera break, and find the last piece of the puzzle, which she quickly uses to break Kirie's curse. It's Miku's love for her brother that saves both of them, but shortly after, she loses him to the rockfall and to Kirie. The canon ending fixes Kirie's loneliness by hurting Miku - not, perhaps, as tragic as the original events but one that will turn out to have nasty consequences later.


	3. Fatal Frame II: Sacrificial Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm including all versions of Fatal Frame II in this.

If Fatal Frame I was about an isolated maiden and her search for love - or at least, friendship - the second game is the love between siblings and friends. After all, the whole disaster came out of Itsuki's love for his brother and friends, and also Yae's desire to not lose what was most important to her in her world, her sister. If it hadn't been for those two things, Minakami Village wouldn't have fallen off the map the way it did because the Repentance happened. It set the stage for Mio's loss of her sister in the canon ending of the game, just to continue the theme of one person sacrificing another - not because they wanted to, but because they needed to.  
  
For identical twins Itsuki and Mutsuki Tachibana, the Crimson Sacrifice ritual seemed terrifying. Ryozo Munakata, a friend of Itsuki's, notes in an entry in his Green Diary I that Itsuki had been afraid of a ceremony ever since they were little kids and Ryozo had been visiting the village. Itsuki's own diary entries in the Bound Diary, especially the first, second, and fifth, talk about how he and Mutsuki wanted Yae and Sae - their friends, and also twins - to get out of there so that they didn't have to go through what Itsuki and Mutsuki were going to have to go through. The plan was, if needed, to get the twin sisters through an escape route at the Kureha shrine, where Itsuki's friend Ryozo would be there for them at the end of the path. Itsuki and Mutsuki would have done it too, but Mutsuki was too weak, and Itsuki wasn't strong enough to carry him.  
  
So, instead, Itsuki and Mutsuki went through their ceremony, which failed and caused Itsuki to feel guilt, no matter how much Mutsuki had reassured his brother that he wouldn't hate him. He managed to get Sae and Yae out through the Kureha passageway and sent them out to what he felt was safety, as seen in one cutscene. Of course, Sae tripped and was recaptured (as she notes in Butterfly Diary 5, "But my body is weak, and I may not always be able to follow you"). Yae got away, as is mentioned in one of Mio's notes. Itsuki, as per his entries and a cutscene, hung himself and was therefore seemingly unaffected by the Repentance.  
  
Sae and Yae themselves were conflicted. Unlike Itsuki and Mutsuki, who both agreed that Sae and Yae had to get out of there, Sae wanted to go through the ceremony where Yae did not, especially if it saved people. She mentions specifically in Butterfly Diary 2 that she would go through the ceremony if it meant that Ryozo's mentor, Seijiro Makabe, didn't have to go through the ceremony.  It may have been that she deliberately did so, since she felt strongly about both performing the ceremony and sparing a stranger from his fate. Yae leaving her behind just left her more determined to wait for Yae to come back as long as was needed, as evidenced by the escape cutscene and her own words in Butterfly Diary 6. Ultimately, Yae didn't return, and Sae was hung in order to salvage the ceremony. Tossed into the Abyss, her spirit came back, corrupted by the Repentance and still waiting for her sister. In some ways, this makes her like Kirie in the first game, still waiting for her loved one to come back.  
  
Another person affected by this entire disaster was Seijiro Makabe. Makabe, as Mio notes in one of her memos, was a folklorist who traveled all over Japan documenting folklore. He jumped at the chance to visit Minakami village when Ryozo mentioned that he was worried about Itsuki, borrowing a camera from his friend Kunihiko Asou. As Ryokan Kurosawa notes in Ceremony Master's Notes 2, this was perfect timing. The village potentially needed a Kusabi, and Kusabi were always outsiders. And now came two of them, who were greeted warmly and treated well until it was time to grab one of them to be a Kusabi sacrifice. Seijiro Makabe was warned enough in advance by Sae and Yae that he sent Ryozo home, as mentioned in his sixth note. He himself was happy that he'd get to see the Hidden Ceremony, though, as he notes in his eleventh note. This fate caused him to be tortured and then thrown into the abyss as required by the Ritual. Sadly, the curious folklorist who died doing what he loved turned into a mindless spirit who knew neither curiosity or love, just killing.  
  
There were other spirits too who were directly affected by the Ceremonies. The Kiriyu twins were forced to go through the ceremony as well. Azami and Akane's ritual was successful, but the tragedy happened when their father, wanting to comfort his grief-stricken daughter Akane, built a doll that looked exactly like Azami. Slowly, as we go through his notes, he mentions that the doll got possessed by a spirit, started controlling Akane, and then one or both of them killed them from what's mentioned in Akane's second diary entry.  
  
Also affected by the ceremony, if indirectly, was Chitose, Itsuki's and Mutsuki's little sister. She was very shy, as Ryozo notes, and had poor eyesight as she mentions in her second entry. A lot happens for reasons she's not aware of - Mutsuki doesn't return, the other's hair turns white, and then Itsuki is taken away after Yae runs. She blames Yae for everything that happened to her family after Yae disappeared, but didn't have a chance to do anything about it. Shortly after Yae runs, Chitose gets stuck in a closet - she's fond of hiding in them - and dies. Her spirit shows up, still with the key she was meant to give Ryozo but was too shy to.  
  
Ryokan Kurosawa's actions were also caused by love. He was a Remaining, as shows up in his crystal recording, and he knew the pain that Sae and Yae, especially Yae, would go through. In his third entry, he mentions that he had to raise his daughters alone - according to the Deep Crimson Butterfly version, his wife threw herself into the Abyss rather than raise twins - and he tried to make sure they weren't lonely, in pain, or sad. But he felt a responsibility, a kind of love, for his village that meant that he had to make one daughter, Yae, kill her sister, Sae, no matter how cruel it was. He had trouble understanding why Yae was not willing to go through the ceremony, and in fact, in the Deep Crimson Butterfly version of note four, mentions that Itsuki "lured" the two to run away - perhaps why Itsuki was trapped in the storehouse where he hung himself.  
  
Years after the events of Sae and Yae's failed ceremony, people would continue disappearing. One pair was Masumi Makimura and his girlfriend Miyako Sudo. Masumi disappeared first, per the clipping found in the abandoned purse on the pathway to Minakami, surveying the area in preparation for the construction of the dam. His girlfriend came looking for him, which she mentions in her third entry. During his explorations, he leaves notes about the village and what he's trying to do to figure a way out for both himself and Miyako, who he leaves in the Osaka house as she's tired and in pain. He finally figures out that the big stone has something to do with their path of escape, as the path in has disappeared, and then concludes that he has to go to the Kurosawa house to get to the answers. Unfortunately, he dies from his injury in the Great Hall's closet, gets his spirit corrupted, kills Miyako, and then she ends up being a corrupted spirit as well.  
  
Of course, Mio and Mayu, the protagonists, enter shortly thereafter. Unlike many of the characters whose backstories are revealed in notes and little bursts of dialogue, Mio and Mayu's stories are revealed as the game goes along. Mayu fell off a path when the girls were little, as revealed in one cutscene, leaving her in pain when she walks. She is the one who instigates the adventure by wandering off after a Crimson Buttefly, and who seemingly gets possessed (see her one note, where she's apologizing to Itsuki, who she shouldn't even know, and the many messages revealed when her charm is used in the Spirit Stone Radio). Mio, much like Yae, swears that they will be together forever, and despite everything, follows her sister, trying to keep her safe and get them out of the dangerous area. It's implied that she feels guilty about Mayu's fall - they were running along like little kids, and now Mayu needs to be protected. Even when it's implied that the older twin is the one that sacrifices the younger one, Mio doesn't care. She might be the second-born twin, but she's not going to see her sister get hurt.  
  
When Mio finds out from Makabe's notes that the second-born twin is the older one in the ritual, Mio and Mayu's roles make a lot of sense; Mayu is the fragile younger twin, born to become a butterfly, like Sae and Mutsuki were supposed to be. Mio is the one destined to become a Remaining, like Itsuki and Yae. Mio, as she gets to the Abyss, finds herself making a choice, and in the canon ending she makes the one that Yae could not force herself to make. She takes Mayu's feelings into consideration, and possibly Sae's, and strangles her twin sister in order to complete the ceremony that Yae and Sae should have done in the first place. In some ways, Mio and Mayu are doing what Sae wanted to do: to protect a person or persons strange to them from harm by doing the duty of the sacrifice. Of course, this leaves Mayu as a butterfly and Mio in terrible mental shape, as proved in the events of Fatal Frame III.

**Author's Note:**

> **Works cited:**
> 
> _Fatal Frame._ Tecmo. 2001. Video game.
> 
>  _Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly._ Tecmo. 2003. Video game.
> 
>  _Fatal Frame III: The Tormented._ Tecmo. 2005. Video game.
> 
>  _Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen._ Tecmo  & Grasshopper manufacture. 2008. Video game.
> 
>  _Project Zero II: Wii Edition._ Nintendo. 2012. Video game.
> 
>  _Zero Wiki._ Beyond the Camera's Lens, 2007. Web. July 1, 2014.


End file.
